Royal Navy in hot water as engines of Britain’s flagship £1bn destroyers break down in middle of sea

THE Royal Navy’s fleet of Type 45 destroyers are breaking down because their engines cannot cope with the Persian Gulf’s warm waters.Rolls-Royce are blaming extremes of temperature in the Middle East for the repeated power outages that have left Britain’s best fighting ships without propulsion or weapons systems.Six Clyde-built Type 45 destroyers need work expected to cost tens of millions of pounds after a string of power failures.If it is not done, the vessels could be left as sitting ducks in battle if the UK is in a major conflict at sea again.A Whitehall source said: “We can’t have warships that cannot operate if the water is warmer than it is in Portsmouth harbour.“These ships have to have a global reach and it looks as if the engineering has compromised them.”The cost of refits over several years is believed to be one of the factors behind the delay in beginning orders for the Type 26 frigates planned for BAE Systems’ yards on the Clyde.Representatives of the Unite union, BAE Systems and Rolls-Royce are due in front of the Commons defence committee today to answer questions on the Type 26 and Type 45 procurement.The MPs are likely to hear for the first time that the decision to overhaul the £1billion-a-piece Type 45s is due to a flaw which leaves Rolls-Royce’s WR-21 gas turbines unable to operate in extreme temperatures.Shipyard unions have warned that the Type 26 contract is being stretched out over twice the original time frame, putting jobs on the Clyde in jeopardy and leading to a possible reduction in the number of ships ordered from 13 to eight.Rolls-Royce are expected to tell the Commons hearing that “high air and sea and water temperatures” combined with poor fuel quality have led to conditions in which the engines are running beyond their design tolerances.The admission comes after years of trying to hush up the engine ­failures on the Type 45 by dismissing them as teething troubles.The first indication of problems came in 2010 when HMS Daring lost all power in mid-Atlantic and had to be repaired in Canada.The ship needed repairs in Bahrain in 2012 while in the Gulf. Reports said it suffered propulsion problems while on patrol off the coast of Kuwait.HMS Defender has just returned from operations in the Gulf, supporting US carrier strikes against Isis in Iraq and Syria.The MoD solution is to fit each Type 45 ship with two back-up diesel generators that could be used if the main propulsion unit breaks down.A staggered refit of the ships is not due to begin until 2019 and will put added pressure on defence budgets.MPs will demand answers about who picks up the bill for the refits and how that impacts on funding for the Type 26 order.SNP MP Douglas Chapman called for assurances about the future of shipbuilding in Scotland.He said: “The workforce and the communities that depend on a continuous order book to keep vital skills have to be heard and the MoD have to live up to their promises.”A Rolls-Royce spokesman said: “We will have a representative at the committee meeting tomorrow who will give a briefing to MPs then.”